I hope this clarifies the facts behind the events that took place on May 13. The harm to the trans* community, game community, journalists, and myself must end. In the very least, I wish the harm is based on facts.

Is it wrong to out the identity of a trans person?

Yes. It puts their safety at risk, physically and mentally.

Did you out a trans* person?

No. The truth was out for a month, but I gathered the information and confirmed. I took the information that was on Reddit, NeoGAF, and Indie Stone forum, and shared my conclusion on Twitter. This was the wrong thing to do.

See (1), (2), (3)

Do you regret your action?

Absolutely. It has done damage to the trans* community in a way I never imagined. My career is ruined and my life is in tatters, some may say rightfully so.

Why would you do this?

I know now how foolish my actions are, but I still have clarity on why I did what I did then.

This trans* individual held a charity for a false goal and false explanation. After a suicide attempt and a letter that didn’t explain the truth, I became worried at the harm that would be done to IndieGoGo, Twitch, and legitimate charities (some of which we ignored after her’s, in reaction). I saw death threats and calls for boycotts the next day (see here for one example: http://i.imgur.com/voFCYY9.jpg). I was aware of how my actions would affect the trans* individual, but thought it was in the greater good to protect honest charities to be harmed. This was an overreaction. If I knew how this would affect the trans* community-at-large, I’d have known what I was doing was wrong.

The action I took was due to a lack of information on the trans* community and emotions clouding my judgement.

How do you know her?

After confirming the truth behind her IGG project (that it was to fund an SRS surgery, as many comments in April already knew), I wanted to continue to help her and find the verbal and financial support that would let her have the surgery she wanted. I did this as an individual, not a journalist. There were no plans for a story by me, at any outlet. Though, I wanted her to come out on her own terms in a welcoming community.

Why would you lie and cover up for her?

I hid the truth from readers and others, as I made initial plans for her to come out with the truth and identity on her own terms. Since IGG backers were refunded, I thought it the greater good to help her.

Is it true that you prevented her from suicide on April 10?

Yes, along with the help of two other good-hearted people in the game journalist community. Though, I was never sure if her claims were serious since it was all through text -- this was someone who had lied about several other serious subjects hours before. After her broadcasted suicide attempt on May 13, I think it was real. The combination of this act and her revealing her mental illnesses, I knew I needed to walk away. I called her school, made sure she was in good hands, and walked away with no plans to tell the truth. But I did [see above].

Where is she now?

In a hospital, I’m told. I like to tell myself that her identity being only ever used online will make her safer, but that may not be the case. She complained about poor treatment at her last hospital visit, following the suicide I prevented. I hope this one is different.

Did Destructoid fire you?

Right now, I’m on temporarily leave. There are other guilty parties involved but I see no good in speaking further, now. At the end of the day, Destructoid is a business and my actions have hurt business. Staff remain kind people (just see how they handled this) and they know everything I’ve done I did because I thought I was helping people, the trans* individual and then IGG/charities. But my actions have hurt people, now. The trans* community is hurt and they want to hurt Destructoid and me, understandably.

My future?

Not sure. This has ruined my career as a game journalist. I hope the facts above help me somewhat in starting on a new path. People should know why I did what I did and the full truth, not some misinformation that I’ve seen -- coming from someone who refused to send support or link to the trans* individual’s new support group ran by the Gamers Against Bigotry.

Journalists will continue to paint me as an unethical bigot and trans* community will continue to hate me for my action. I’m afraid the truth above won’t suffice, since a bloodlust is already out there and I’ve been marked as a bad guy.

I’m a journalist who made a bad choice with good intentions. I wish I had someone stronger to lean on in my weaker moments, as I let her lean on me during her’s. Learn from this, journalists.

How do I make this better?

The only thing I can see having an immediate effect is me getting back in touch with her. If I publicly apologized to her for tweeting her identity and if she publicly apologized for putting IGG indirectly in harm’s way, I think real strong positive progress can be made in calming both sides of the community. I’m working on that.

How can you make this better?

Trans*: There will be lots of bigots that attack you, but not all of them are hopeless. Send them to some sites that will help them understand the trans* community better. I wish someone had done that to me, so I could have been less ignorant on how I discussed things at first.

Journalists: Study this as a case on why not to get emotionally involved in a subject. Have a news room that invites open discussion on ethical dilemmas. I expect Destructoid will make great strides in this, in reaction.

Haters: Stop saying it’s okay to out a trans* because of (blank). It’s not. Maybe in some bizarre reality where a time bomb in Time Square is going to go off it’d be okay, but outing someone because they conducted a scam a month before is not a good reason to out anyone. It is also not why I did what I did [see above].

Everyone: This was a power keg waiting to go off. Help clean the pieces instead of causing more damage.

Summary - Destructoid writer includes extremely relevant information about a story (the purpose of the surgery being for some sort of metal stuck in them slowly killing her, when it was in fact their SRS (Sex reassignment surgery). It wasn't like he said added "btw she a tranny #yolo" at the end of his story, it was pretty much the core of the story.

He's off Destuctoid's payroll anyways and is suspended pending the outcome of an investigation.

Update 2:

Allistair has since been suspended immediately, and we are investigating the situation as well as amending our internal policies on the matter. We are learning as we go. I have been consulting with Samantha Allen over Skype for two hours today and we are making great progress. Among other things, we talked about the violences that transgender people face everyday and how our outlet can become more committed to making this online community a safe space for people of all sexualities and gender identities.

I want to make three things clear:

(1) Destructoid did not act on this quickly enough because (due to E3 judges week) people were on airplanes or in meetings when it happened. This is in no way an excuse, I'm just stating that it was unfortunate timing. Once we heard about it we had to immediately develop a protocol for this, thus delaying my response. I apologize for this.

(2) As far back as April 9 Allistair was advised NOT to post about his investigative findings. Allistair had become uncooperative with the EIC and me over this specific topic over the past few weeks. We were stunned to discover his behavior on Twitter despite his acknowledgement not to post any information the night prior to the incident. Other staff close to the investigation did not post. I want to be clear that he posted this on his on will, off of our site, against our wishes. Destructoid is in no way connected to his actions, nor was he instructed to do this. We asked for an immediate take down and deletion from his personal account the second we spotted it and began his employment review.

(3) Chloe's IndieGoGo campaign (whether it was fradulent or not) is completely irrelevant to the ethics of Allistair's decision. IndieGoGo had cancelled the campaign already and the fact that it was fradulent does not in any way justify Allistair's decision to out her.

Allistair has since sent us a very lengthy apology to both staff and the transgender community, which we will not republish (at the risk of exposing more facts about Chloe and others involved in this case from other sites), but in short he felt he was simply doing his job as a journalist and illustrates how much time on the phone and other personal time he spent with Chloe trying to save her life while also reporting all of the facts. There was a breach of confidence here that should have not occurred. What Allistair did was clearly wrong. He will already be paying for this for years to come, and he knows anything he says to excuse himself does not make it any more acceptable. I don't think he genuinely set out to do harm here and this is the ONLY reason he is given a due process instead of an immediate firing. Still, we are considering this matter very seriously.

Effective immediately Allistair has been dismissed for now until we decide if this is a fireable offense, his pay has been suspended up until yesterday, and his title has been stripped. All of his email and site accounts have been suspended, and he has been removed from the staff page. We are currently evaluating what role he will have upon returning, if any. He is off the payroll.

We have extremely strict policies on what is acceptable in social media and a three strikes rule before firing anyone. We are currently back-tracking through our records to make that final recommendation. We will update this thread when we have completed our investigation and heard all sides of the story.

Until then, my deepest apologies to Chloe and the transgender community.

even if he was in the right, the company he works for wants zero negative attention

for future reference, see Dana White and the shit he took and how the UFC is now suspending fighters for using the word fag on twitter

If you think "the LGBT community" is that powerful, you're sadly mistaken. I go from being married to not being married depending on what state I happen to be in at the time, LGBT people don't exactly have a ton of clout around here.

By the way, I think any organization worth ANYTHING should be suspending people for using language like that in a public forum. If someone was going on Twitter to complain about "niggers" people would see it in a whole different light. I'm all for people having the right to use whatever offensive terms they'd like, but the flip side of that is that others are perfectly within their rights to have an issue with it.

This is a bad situation all around, but why is his career ruined over this? I can understand if it's because he got too involved in the story, but isn't it his duty to tell the truth if someone is running a scam to inform the public of what the money will actually be going towards?

Also, it's another thing to consider as an outlet when you run publicity on KickStarter or IndieGoGo projects. You have a duty to your readers to investigate projects before you direct people to contribute.

From the things I have read about this story, the only thing Alistair did wrong was give her an ultimatum.

When someone fraudulently accepts $30K for something completely different than is being advertised, I think it is journalist's duty to allow its audience to know what happened.

When you publicize yourself, the story, and this project, you no longer control the message. This was a reasonable follow-up story to what appears to be a fraudulent Indiegogo campaign.

Allistair was given the info by Chloe. She has now incriminated him in a very, very serious manner. If he didn't step out, he would be in a terrible position. He knew that she was stealing from people. He was then put into a position where he could not say anything for fear of her committing suicide. He was stuck. No matter how he responded, he was screwed. Then, she tries to commit suicide anyway. She is hospitalized. Now, look at it from his perspective.

"The info" being that she is planning to use donations for SRS and not lifesaving surgery, that is fucked up, why is he the one that is at fault here?

Disgraceful that he's been fired. Fearmongering communities of angry mobs get their way once again. Heaven forbid someone that threatens suicide on other people and tries to scam the internet out of money over a complete fabrication has their shit laid to bare.

Still not sure what to think about this. I can't agree with that it was wrong to reveal the circumstances of her indiegogo campaign but reading his tweets and tweetlong thing it displayed ignorance and borderline viciousness. If anything that should be what he's suspended for. If he was told by editorial not to publish though I guess that settles it since it's ultimately the site's reputation on the line.

"The info" being that she is planning to use donations for SRS and not lifesaving surgery, that is fucked up, why is he the one that is at fault here?

Because appearances. This Chloe person is a deranged individual, and this fellow did the right thing by exposing the scam she was trying to run, but because of the drama that followed the site has to take disciplinary action to satiate the frothing, angry hordes.

If someone is lying to steal money to put towards a different cause they should be called out and have that money given back to the backers. If the person is going to commit suicide over it, well so be it. They need to at least have the situation addressed and then maybe someone can get this person some help but fraud/theft is not the way to go and should never be supported by anyone.

1. He hasn't been fired yet.
2. The story doesn't need the details of what exactly she was planning on spending the money on. All he had to reveal was that she didn't need life threatening surgery, and then she could have decided if she wanted to go ahead to try to get the SRS on a separate fund raiser.
3. I am not defending her actions, but I don't think two wrongs make a right. Yes, the writer did nothing illegal, but that doesn't mean outing a person like that is morally right and something we should be lining up to defend.
4. No one's free speech has been infringed here. A company can fire someone for publicly taking a position they don't like. It doesn't remove that persons right to express that opinion. Destructoid are not required to provide any belief a platform.

If you think "the LGBT community" is that powerful, you're sadly mistaken. I go from being married to not being married depending on what state I happen to be in at the time, LGBT people don't exactly have a ton of clout around here.

By the way, I think any organization worth ANYTHING should be suspending people for using language like that in a public forum. If someone was going on Twitter to complain about "niggers" people would see it in a whole different light. I'm all for people having the right to use whatever offensive terms they'd like, but the flip side of that is that others are perfectly within their rights to have an issue with it.

Agree with all your points, my post wasn't my views its how I see things are going. I didnt mean the LGBT community had power, I meant Destructoid doesn't want someone writing a negative article about them so they take action on the person that could cause that article.

I don't understand the marriage thing, that's so unbelievable that in this day and age people are still so ignorant.

I'm Canadian and I don't see these issues come up a lot in my day to day life.

Protip: He isn't in danger of being fired for being honest, a journalist, or whatever.

He's in danger of being fired because he apparently outed a transgendered individual mere hours after they had attempted suicide, despite his bosses, the individual, and common goddamn sense telling him not to.

The fact that he also outright says "lol was a fraudulent campaign, believe me point of fact" doesn't help either.

He put the potential embarrassment of freaking IndieGoGo and Twitch.tv over a human life. He is no journalist.